RESPONDING TO THE CARMEN CHRISTI
I must confess that preaching on the Carmen Christi (The Song of Christ – Philippians 2:5-11) was a high point, a mountain-top experience. The confession aspect is that it is difficult to follow that up with “another sermon.” When you reach a high, everything else seems downhill from there.
What’s next? What follows an amazing spiritual experience in your life? This is the problem with revivals – when a people become so filled with the Spirit and the wonders of God, what do you do with it? Do you go back to your normal work-a-day lives? Or do you sell everything and give to the poor? Does God want you to become a missionary or move to the inner city? What happens next?
I learned a new word this week – athleisure. It refers to clothing intended for the purpose of working out. According to an article in The Wall Street Journal, a woman who likes to buy athletic apparel enjoys wearing yoga pants around town but seldom has time to actually work out. She said, “When you put on your workout apparel, you think, ‘Huh, maybe I should think about working out today.’” Athleisure means wearing clothes designed for workouts for other purposes that don’t involve working out.
You have been clothed with a garment of salvation, the demonstration of God’s love on the cross of Christ. What’s next? You work it out!
Following the Carmen Christi there is a “therefore” alert. Paul doesn’t end with the exaltation of Christ – he has a “therefore” for us. Paul tells us what’s next.
1. A Response That Requires Action (2:12-13)
You are familiar with oxymorons. An oxymoron is a figure of speech, usually one or two words, which seem contradictory. Some examples: jumbo shrimp, paper towel, deafening silence, exact estimate, found missing.
Paul has given us a sentence that fits the contradictory nature of an oxymoron. He says, “Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure,”(12-13).
The problem we see in this statement has to do with our understanding of salvation. It is a free gift from God no one can earn. Now Paul says to work out “your own salvation.” That’s contradictory in itself. Add to that the next thought that as you work it out, God works in you. Why do I have to do anything if God does all the work? Paul’s oxymoron sounds like this: work out your salvation while God works in you. Let’s look at this closer…
We are to “work out our own salvation.” Each of us needs to wrestle with it on our own to a degree. “Work out” doesn’t mean “earn” or “achieve,” however, it means “do.” Salvation is a gift earned solely by Jesus Christ for us. But there are implications with this gift. If you are in hospital and unable to get out of bed and a brilliant doctor finds the cause and helps to heal you, what do you do? Stay in bed? You get up and walk. If someone gives you a 2026 Corvette, do you keep it in the garage and just revel in possessing a fancy car? No, you drive it.
Jesus has saved you. He has saved you from your sins but also saved you to live a new life. The privilege of salvation is to be enjoyed. Walk the new path; don’t just study the map.
Perhaps that’s why Paul adds “with fear and trembling.” Not that we should live in fear of punishment for walking the new walk incorrectly. No, it means living in the realization that God has given us an unfathomable gift. In the OT when God appeared to people in all his glory, they were filled with “fear and trembling.” It was a natural reaction to encountering the Almighty.
And isn’t it encouraging that as we work out our salvation, God is working too? The very desire we have to work out our salvation comes from God – he does that in us. Paul shared this same thought with the Ephesians, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them,” (2:10).
So, the Carmen Christi, the gift of God in Christ, requires action. But what action do we take?
2. A Response of Gratitude (2:14-16)
The first practical thing Paul says is a little odd: “Do all things without grumbling or disputing…” He doesn’t ask for some grand gesture; in fact, it seems rather mundane. Why would Paul not press for a more extravagant response?
The key is in the words he uses grumbling, blameless, children of God without blemish, crooked and twisted generation. Paul is building his argument using terms that should make us think of the children of Israel in their wilderness experience. But how does that help?
Think of the exodus from Egypt. The children of Israel were witnesses to the most amazing miracle of salvation ever seen up until that time: the crossing of the Red Sea. Their backs were up against the proverbial hard place. Egyptian soldiers were bearing down on them, and they had nowhere to go. Then God opens up the Sea for them to walk through.
Three days later, the children of Israel started grumbling (Ex. 15:22-24) because there was no water to drink. God tells Moses to strike a rock and they get water. Next, they grumble because they are hungry and want to go back to Egypt where they had food (Ex. 16:2). Then God gives them manna and quail. Then they’re thirsty again (Ex. 17:3).
The God who opened the Sea for them and saved them surely would provide for them. Right? But no, following a great salvation, the human tendency is to grumble. Moses wrote of them saying, “They have dealt corruptly with him; they are no longer his children because they are blemished; they are a crooked and twisted generation,” (Deut. 32:5).
You see what Paul is saying in this “mundane” challenge? Don’t take salvation for granted. Live it out in faith and obedience. This chapter in Philippians began with a call to think of others as better than ourselves, then gives us Christ who emptied himself for others. Then reminds us of the ingratitude of Israel and how it affected the community.
Grumbling is a secret displeasure in the heart, and a sullen discontent that leads to criticism. CS Lewis said, “Hell begins with a grumbling mood, always complaining, always blaming others…but you are still distinct from it. You may even criticize it in yourself and wish you could stop it. But there may come a day when you can no longer. Then there will be no you left to criticize the mood or even to enjoy it, but just the grumble itself, going on forever like a machine,” (Mere Christianity). The opposite of grumbling is gratitude…
Last week I told you about my parking lot issue. My spot had been given away, and I decided to submit. I parked this Monday in a spot further away from the college. But I was unsettled because I may have taken someone else’s spot. I checked my email and wondered where S211 was. So, I asked someone in the office. She didn’t know exactly. Okay, I thought. But then she said there was a general parking area in such and such a zone open to everyone. Why didn’t I park there, she said. I went out and moved my truck to that spot. I am now closer to the college than ever before. I feel blessed.
When we shine as lights in a dark world and hold fast to the word of life (working it out; living it), God blesses us in ways we cannot imagine.
3. A Response of Joy (2:17-18)
It may sound in these next verses that Paul is expecting to be executed. I don’t think that’s what he has in mind when he says he is going to be “poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith.”
Paul is talking about giving his all for Jesus by pouring himself into the Philippian believers. A “drink offering” in the OT was something done by a priest; he would pour out a pitcher of wine on the ground or pour it over a meat offering. Paul compares his life to such a sacrifice – he is glad, it brings him joy, to empty his life for the sake of their faith. That word “empty” is nothing less than what Jesus did for us when he left his “glory” and took on being a man. In essence, “I’ll do whatever it takes to help your faith.” He is happy to do this.
When we think of salvation – forgiveness of sins, the new life, the gift of the Holy Spirit – are we zeroed in on this new direction? Don’t we have a better idea of what life is for? That it’s not about money or pleasure or comfort or entertainment? We are invited to enjoy the gift. As Marc Sims said, “You can use a violin as a tennis racket or to paddle a canoe, but you will never experience the highest joy of a violin until you sit down and play it, until you use it the way it was designed.”
Our lives are made for God. Only by walking in the steps of Jesus do we begin to understand what life is for. Your life is not meant to be hoarded but poured out for others. Parents, do you pour out your lives for your children? Husbands and wives, is it your aim to serve each other in your marriages so that your partner experiences the full joy of life in Christ? Young adults, are you living to fulfill a career goal or someone else’s hopes for your life?
Our lives are made for God and when we find our joy in him, we find the greater satisfaction.
What is our response to the Carmen Christi?
Work out your salvation!
Lehman Strauss says, “God has assumed the responsibility for the inworking, we are responsible for the outworking.” There is no oxymoron in this. This is participation (koinonia) in the life of Christ being lived out in you.
Work out your salvation with fear and trembling!
John Ortberg compares it to crossing the ocean. If we set out in a rowboat by ourselves, we’ll never cross that ocean. We don’t have what it takes. But if we just drift, expecting God to blow us across the ocean, that won’t work either.
Neither trying nor drifting are effective in bringing about spiritual transformation. A better image is the sailboat, which if it moves at all, it’s a gift of the wind. We can’t control the wind, but a good sailor discerns where the wind is blowing and adjusts the sails accordingly.
God works, and then we work out what God is working in us.
Have this mind among yourselves which is yours in Christ Jesus! Work out your saved life in Jesus!
AMEN
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